World plastic production was 1.5 million metric tons in 1950 and increased to 322 million metric tons in 2015. The cumulative amount of plastics produced from 1950 to 2013 has been estimated as 6.3×10<sup>9 </sup>metric tons. With the accidental or intentional release of this plastic waste from various lands sources, this waste will ultimately make its way into world oceans.Two types of plastic have been shown to have adverse effect on oceans. One type is drifting plastic causing animal entanglement and digestive is orders. The second type is comprised of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which persist for long periods of time on the ocean surface. Though plastic is durable, in oceans, it eventually undergoes extensive fragmentation into pieces (5mm) called micro/nano-plastics . These pieces are digested by living creatures and accumulate elsewhere are suspected of having damaging effect on biota. In addition to these two types of plastic, the present study reports chemical contamination generated by plastic degradation to give rise to a new potential threat to ocean biota. This is the first extensive study on thermal degradation of PS at mild temperatures such as in oceans. Over 4,000 samples taken from different parts of the world at different periods were analyzed and styrene origomer (SOs) generated from PS was detected in all samples. Assuming 7% of plastics to produce PS, PS was calculated as 4×10<sup>8 </sup>metric tons. The amount of 1.4 billion metric tons SOs actually clearly shows that 0.2% of PS production from 1950 to 2013 is decomposed and becomes a source of new marine pollution.

Plastics increasing chemical contamination in ocean and coast

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.